The next time your brain says “CHOCOLATE” and you reach for sweets wrapped in silver foil from some town in Pennsylvania…don’t. You should also ignore the naked blonde chick on horseback too because she’s got nothin’ compared to our friends Daniel and Tamara Herskovic, local chocolatiers right here in our city’s own backyard. Mayana Chocolate has been successfully turning out some of the most beautiful and critically acclaimed confections in the city for years now and Provenance Food & Wine was more than happy to put their candy bars on our shelves (and in our mouths). Provenance staffer Nathan caught up with the married duo to discuss their bars, world domination, and how we almost lost them both to a pig farm and a shoe store.
PFW: Ok Daniel and Tamara, several months ago I fell in love and I fell pretty hard....with The Kitchen Sink. I'm referring to your out-of-this-world artisan candy bar which is layer after amazing layer of peanut butter, pretzel, milk chocolate, crispy rice, and your very own fleur de sel caramel...did I mention the 66% dark chocolate tying the whole thing together? You've created a line of artisan bars that we're thrilled to carry here at Provenance Food & Wine...and they should come with a warning label. Aside from putting smiles on your customer’s faces by way of your confections, what else do you hope to accomplish through Mayana Chocolate?
MC: Provenance Food & Wine was the first store to put Mayana Chocolate
candy bars onto the shelf and we are excited to have our product there! We love that our candy bars place a smile on our customers’ faces. Beyond that we think world peace (or domination) through Mayana Chocolate is the ultimate accomplishment. We're close...like, a few bars away from our goal.
PFW: I know you've both combined your backgrounds of event planning and culinary arts into quite the successful business that is Mayana Chocolate. When you teamed up (in life and in work) was artisan chocolate always the end goal? Or did you find inspiration for your line of sweets in other ways?
MC: When Daniel and I met he was just learning to make chocolate confections which was lucky timing on my part! I admired his passion to learn. Even now he gets a dreamy look in his eyes when he talks about chocolate and a new flavor combination he wants to try. It's important to both of us that we love what we do.
PFW: "Like a kid in a candy store" is a phrase that still gets tossed around. It's how I feel pretty much daily walking into Provenance for work. (Wine-aholic and proud of it). Looking back to childhood were confections and the art of chocolate-making something you wanted to be involved in as an adult? Or did you both have other plans in mind when you became "big kids"?
MC: I wanted to be a ballerina and a pig farmer. I had it worked out that I'd fly back and forth from NY to the farm. If someone would've told the 8-year-old me that I'd end
up making chocolate I would have added that to my ballerina-pig farmer gig. Daniel's mom encouraged him to be a ladies shoes salesman. I think they watched a lot of "Married with Children" at their house. Daniel rarely notices my shoes unless they're covered in chocolate.
PFW: We always love asking our vendors about the "wow factor", or the spark that got the creative gears turning in your mind which eventually led to creating the business. Being fully immersed in the chocolate world, was there a specific moment (or chocolate) that comes to mind that made you think, "Ok, we can definitely do this for a living"?
MC: We had a catering client who asked for a chocolate confections table in lieu of a birthday cake. It was so beautiful to see them on displayed and see her guests' reaction to them. It was the first time I heard someone say, "they're too pretty to eat!" and then proceed to eat as many as possible. Chocolate is a complicated ingredient but it's fun! It's chocolate!
PFW: As if Daniel's bars aren't works of art as it is, the gorgeous designs on top a-la Tamara only enhance the beauty of each product. Where do you both find the inspiration for not just the flavor profiles of each candy bar, but for the artistic visual details as well?
MC: Honestly we have our sights set on some incredibly cool custom artwork in the near future. Currently, we can work with clients in placing their name, logo, special dates and more onto their custom chocolates. We're also developing a "wedding proposal" bon bon box that will take your engagement story to the next level.
6 PFW: I was SUPER lucky to be working one Saturday afternoon here at Provenance while Tamara was doing a tasting of some of your bars and truffles. (I may or may not have been the guy who was no more than 2 inches away from your samples the whole day...too good!) Providing our customers with a taste of your bars was all they needed before buying one (or several) for themselves to take home; a great way to grow your customer base. In what other ways do you strive to expand your products to new (and old) customers?
MC: Chocoholics have become my favorite type of [customer]. Our marketing meetings have churned out great ideas such as sky writing and placing golden tickets into our packaging. They aren't very long meetings.
PFW: It’s important to us at Provenance that our customers know from start to finish it takes three days to create your artisan bars. It’s truly a labor of love and you can really tell when looking at the final product. Being able to sell a handcrafted locally made product that not only tastes but looks amazing is a major benefit for our customers who come in craving something sweet. What do you both feel is another major benefit that Mayana offers its retailers and consumers?
MC: Everything is hand crafted by us. Our dairy products are organic and we are on a first name basis with the dairy farmer. Our chocolate is Fair Trade. All the almonds in the Space Bar are hand roasted by Daniel. Each batch of caramel takes approximately 1 hour in our copper kettle. Each candy bar is hand cut. Our "jobs" would be a lot easier if we cut corners but where would the fun be in that?!
PFW: As someone who enjoys his chocolate as much as he enjoys his wine, I would imagine a major highlight to working at Mayana would be experimenting with different ingredients to create new flavor profiles and textures for your bars and truffles. Do you both have a favorite aspect to running your business?
MC: Daniel obsesses about his caramel and all the kitchen equipment. I love chocolate so it all works out.
PFW I’m sure you guys keep all your new confections under lock and key but is there anything we can tell our customers to look forward to seeing in the coming months as Mayana gets closer to the holidays and New Year?
MC: Yes, we will feature new candy bar flavors along with toffee and marshmallows!
PFW Working with sugar and chocolate is still relatively foreign to me. I’ll be the first to admit that I’ve made rookie mistake numero uno in the past when I tried to melt chocolate without the aid of a double-boiler which of course resulted in a scorched mess. (Burnt chocolate: there are few things worse in this world). Have you guys had any stand-out successes or follies in the kitchen over the years since founding Mayana Chocolate that our readers might enjoy hearing about?
MC: Daniel throws caramel out...there, I said it. He says things like, "it wasn't good" or, "the sugar restructured"...Those instances are few and far between but when it happens it ruins his day. I have to remind him it's chocolate, it's supposed to be fun. Bottom line is that if it isn't perfect it won't leave our facility.
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